Food waste to energy – how it works and how it can make you money

If you create food waste or other organic waste such as sewage sludge, unseparated organic waste, contaminated organic waste or meat/animal by products our technology can reduce or completely eliminate your waste removal issues, convert the food waste to energy, and make you much better off in the process…

All you have to do is feed your waste into one of our proprietary digester units instead of the bin and then, within 24 hours, it will be turned into a product that is between 20-30 percent of the original volume and highly valuable as a fuel to supplement a biomass unit or put to other uses such as soil enrichment.

If you have a need for heating or cooling energy on site, the biomass option is exceptionally cost-effective because you are creating ‘free fuel’ which we feed directly into your biomass boiler and this then drives your hot water, heating or, via an absorption chiller, cooling requirements.

How it works – the science of waste to energy conversion

The process is controlled by a unique blend of microbes specially created to break down organic materials (and optimised according to your specific needs) along with a carefully controlled digester environment.

To give you an idea, this is what is typically left of food waste after 24 hours…

This substance – called the digestate – is valuable in a number of different ways…

It takes up only 20-30% of the volume of the original food waste – if you do nothing else this means a substantial reduction in waste removal costs that will quickly pay off the cost of the equipment and reduce the burden on landfill, transport etc

Even better, it is a highly efficient fuel that can give you “free energy” to drive your heating and/or cooling requirements on site. It burns at 4kWh/kg which means today’s food waste will be providing tomorrow’s heating without ever needing to leave your site, all within a no-hassle closed system.

The digestate is also extremely nutrient rich which means it can be used in agricultural situations to provide soil enrichment and help turn unproductive land into a fertile enviromnet

How you make money – the economics of food waste to energy conversion

Here are two hypothetical scenarios to give you an idea of the potential of our systems to save you considerable amounts of money and improve your returns by a better approach to your organic and food waste processing…

Scenario 1 – food waste to energy (the full package)

In this situation – a typical one for clients – let’s imagine a hotel that currently creates 800 kg of food waste a day (or 5,600kg a week).

Assuming a disposal cost of £120/tonne, this means current food waste disposal costs of 5.6 x £120 = £672 per week (or £2,912 per average month).

With a Biotechnical Energy food waste to energy system these costs are eliminated completely so that’s an immediate cost reduction of £2,762 per month (allowing for energy usage at £150/mth).

However, we haven’t finished yet because the digestate that is left over (assuming the optimal reduction to 30% for energy uses) has now become (5,600 x 0.3) = 1,680kg a week (or 7,280kg per average month) of fuel that will provide 4kWh/kg of energy.

This means the digestate, once burned in the biomass boiler, will provide (7,280 x 4) = 29,120kWh of energy per month.

If you assume this is replacing oil at 6p per kWH that means you also save (29,120 x 0.06) = £1,747.20 per month off your oil bill

Adding up these monthly savings we have £2,762 from eliminating food waste removal costs and £1,747.20 from reduced oil costs meaning a monthly saving of (2,762 +1,747.20) = £4,509.20

If you pay for your equipment through our financing programme, you will typically be repaying £1,800 a month for 5 years, meaning a monthly profit on the system of £2,709.20 even while you are paying it back with the full £4,509.20 per month coming to you after you own the system outright.

If this isn’t enough to persuade you, there is even the option to make more money through the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive programme in certain situations – contact us for more details.

If you like the sound of this and would like an indicative guide of how much a Biotechnical Energy food waste to energy system could save you all we need is 5 minutes of your time to answer a few basic questions – please call us now on 01837 214264 or request a call back here

Even if you don’t have the opportunity for the full food waste to energy conversion system, we can still save you considerable amounts of money with no hassle using our new state of the art beD200 digester systems…

This ingenious version of our technology – made possible through proprietary bacteriological breakthroughs – replaces one of your food bins and turn every load of food you add to it into 20% of its original volume. In other words, even if you then pay for the left over digestate to be taken away, you immediately cost your waste disposal costs by 80%.

Scenario 2 – food waste reduction

Let’s consider how the sums work out for a smaller hotel than in scenario 1, which is looking for waste reduction but this time without the energy conversion element…

They are creating 200kg of food waste per day at a current disposal cost of £120 per tonne which works out at £728 in costs per average month.

With a beD200 system they will immediately remove 80% of these costs resulting in a monthly saving of (728 x 0.8) = £582.40

On a 5 year financing plan the beD200 would typically cost £375 per month.

This means that even during the payback period a monthly profit of £145.60 is made with the full benefit of £582.40 per month being realised once the equipment is owned outright.

Every situation is unique and we will understand you specific circumstances and requirements to create a system that offers you the best possible return and outcome. For example, if you have multiple sites, we have even more options to work with.

The bottom line is that if you create one tonne or more of food waste or other organic waste we can almost certainly help you save a lot of money – please get in touch for a no-obligation chat…